Friday, November 30, 2007

What is it with quitting early?

The first draft of this post was swallowed by the Internets, so hopefully this one will come out a little better.

I've been trying to think of a good topic for a post for the past couple of days and my mind led me to the topic of finishing games, namely why the hell can't I seem to finish anything anymore. I've played many games in my life and hope to play many more, but the list of games I've finished doesn't seem to grow at nearly the same rate as those I've played. The most common offender are RPG's. I love me some Final Fantasy, love it a lot, but I haven't finished Final Fantasy IX and it took me nearly 3 years to beat Final Fantasy X. At some point, possibly once I stopped having summer vacations with nothing to do, I just couldn't slog my way through a 40 hour RPG. Instead I've been enjoying games with shorter play times, your Portal's and what-have-you. It really is usually an issue of attention span, but occasionally, and the impetus for this post has reminded me, sometimes it is all about getting frustrated.

I'm proud to say I've only thrown a controller in anger once in my life. It was long ago when I was playing Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and couldn't for the life of me get past Vega, dirty spanish bastard that he was. In my rage I threw my Sega Genesis controller to the ground after what must have been the millionth attempt, receiving an admonishment from my mother that I was not to do that again. Since, I have held my temper fairly well, never having harmed an innocent piece of plastic, no matter how much it may cheat. Yet, this past week I came as close as I ever have to hurling a controller across to room, hoping to revel in it's destruction. What beastly game could possibly have been the instigator of such fury? Guitar Hero III. That's right, everyone's favorite party game, almost caused me to lose my cool. I play the game on hard, because medium is a touch too easy and expert is a touch to masochistic for my tastes. I've reached the second to last grouping of songs having never had to play more than a few songs multiple times, excepting those maddening boss battles, but all of a sudden I had to practice sections of each song to get through them. I made a rule with myself when it came to guitar hero; if I had to practice a song to get through it, I was done. I play video games to have fun, at least games like this, and if I have to practice it ain't fun. So that's it, I'm done. I've said it before, it has to be the end goal of a designer to have players complete their games. Hell, what would directors think if people never watched the ends of their movies? The game's difficulty hit a particularly hard spike and sent me packing. Can this possibly be considered a good thing by the designers? I understand the desire to have a challenging game, I really do, but I want to be able to finish a game as well. The easiest way to fix it in this situation would be to allow the players to choose the difficulty of individual songs in career mode, which would let me cruise through the songs on medium that I couldn't get through on hard. Then I could complete the game and have the chance to play all the songs there are on it. As it stands, I'm not going back in to play through on medium just to get to a few more songs.

While for some games the problem was length, for Guitar Hero I stopped because it became just too hard for me to keep up and keep enjoying myself. So are these some of the keys to an enjoyable experience? Bite-sized chunks, not overly long main gameplay sections, a difficulty that is challenging yet not too harsh? I think that if you can combine those things you will have a game that is fun and well received. Look at Portal, I finished in 2.5 hours or so and it is still probably my favorite game of the year. So, Neversoft, I beg of you, tone down the difficulty a bit and let us not quite hardcore gamers finish your game!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Assassin's Creed: Impressions.

So, I've been playing Assassin's Creed since Saturday and it is certainly a fun game. Now my last post discussed some of the issues that have popped up around the game regarding reviews. I've played through 7 of the 9 assassinations now, I'm planning on finishing it off tonight. Like I said above the game is fun, quite fun at times. It has some problems though and, to me at least, those problems keep it from being a great game.


THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD!




I'll start off with the fun. Holy crap do the environments in the game look amazing. The cities of Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre look just wonderful. They aren't necessarily completely distinct from one another, but they seem very real. As for the interactions you have as a player with these environments, those are the games high points. The biggest invention that I think this game pulled of is their introduction of parkour to video gaming, at least in this integral a manner. It is an absolute joy to run around the rooftops leaping from building to building and grabbing onto whatever little thing you can find to pull yourself up.

UPDATE: I started this post yesterday afternoon and I'm going to finish it today after having completed all but the final assassination.

Assassin's Creed has captured the best elements of the movement found in Prince of Persia and nearly perfected it. It allows for a sense of freedom and the willingness to take risks, something that is very encouraging from a design standpoint. One of my favorite moments in gaming is the end section of The Sands of Time, when you are climbing the side of a giant fortress. Most of the combat is gone and it is all about the moving. Assassin's Creed was really able to rekindle that feeling much of the time.

Unfortunately, that leads me to the problems I have with the game. Firstly the game definitely becomes repetitive. That isn't bad, if you enjoy the parts that repeat, but I just can't be bothered to go through all the investigations for each assassination. Once you've saved one citizen, you've saved them all. In nearly always found myself rushing through the investigation phase to get down to the assassination. Too bad even they couldn't always maintain the excellence of other parts of the game. My biggest gripe with the assassinations lies in the "stealth" of the game. I would relish assassinations that were inventive and required lots of sneaking and thinking. That's usually not the case. I think I've only completed one assassination with a stealth kill, the others involved slogging it out with the target. I suppose that would be forgivable if the combat were a little more than simple counter-attacks. Enemies will stand in a circle around you and attack one at a time, which is a somewhat sad state of affairs if you ask me. The part that gets me the saddest about lost opportunity are the assassinations that involve targets that flee. They run through the city to a guard tower that is stationed somewhere and if you don't catch them you have to fight past all the guards. I feel as though you should have failed your assassination at that point, but the game will let you kill tens of guards before you have to kill your target and it is still okay. Doesn't seem nearly as assassiny to me.

Finally there is the story. (Here's where the spoilers be) I was originally very excited to play a game set in the era of the Crusades when I heard about Assassin's Creed. Then all this stuff about Sci-fi nonsense began to surface and I became concerned. Turns out I was right. I love science fiction, good science fiction mind you, but I don't think it's really serving a purpose in this game. Granted, I have yet to finish the story so there is still the chance the game will make me 180 on the story, but I'm doubtful. There is so much that could have been done with just the setting of the crusades that I regret the lost opportunity this game represents. Sure they have set themselves up for sequels, Assassin's Creed 2: Electric Boogaloo, but they haven't created a unique setting that would have been truly original. They do have an explanation for their decision, namely that they wanted the game to be set in a flashback and that it allows them to justify many a gaming cliche. While I applaud their efforts to fight cliches, or at least acknowledge and justify them, I don't think that makes up for the lackluster story. The dialogue doesn't help either. Sigh. I've likely been spoiled by months of slaving over a hot Mass Effect, but I expect better than what Assassin's Creed has to offer.

I'm going to do some ruminations on what would improve the game and what I've learned from playing it and have those up sometime. Overall were I to review the game, I'd give it a solid 7. It's fun, but it isn't great. Don't pay $60 for it, wait until it is cheaper.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Must write or risk death.

So, been far too long since I've been back here. I started a new job and found myself greatly removed from the impulse to blog that had been driving me earlier. However, there is always something to discuss in video games. One of the things I happened upon yesterday that somewhat set me off was Gabe's news post on Penny Arcade. He has some major issues with several reviews of Assassin's Creed, a game that had been advertised on PA in the past. Now, you can certainly object to the opinions of the review itself and disagree with the reviewer. However, Gabe firstly seems to believe that the reviewers are unable to remember that they are playing a game they should be enjoying and not just focus on finishing a game for review. While that is likely true in some cases, it seems unlikely that it happened as many times as there were reviews that called AC repetitive. He also seems to believe that the reviewers didn't like the ending, because they must not have watched all the way past the credits. He did and he thought the story was "teh awesomzors!" Maybe, maybe they just didn't like it. Why would you assume that anything you enjoy is going to be enjoyable to others? Yeah, I don't really agree with him at all. Reviews are subjective and that is the way it will always be. Some reviewers found the game repetitive and that lowered their score. Gabe says they are wrong essentially, which is total crap. Let them review the game and don't complain just because you liked it.

I'll try to update with some more later, but I got work to do.